ANKARA, Turkey — Police stormed the offices of Turkey’s main opposition party Sunday, firing tear gas and rubber bullets at party supporters and officials who had been holed up inside for three days.
It was a violent end to a standoff between members of the Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and a leadership team appointed by an appeals court, escalating tensions between the opposition and the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid growing signs of eroding democracy in Turkey.
Supporters had barricaded the courtyard entrance with buses and the building with furniture. Video taken by local media in the courtyard and inside the building showed clouds of tear gas as riot police stormed through the premises, before journalists were removed by the police.
Once the raid began, supporters attempted to resist the police by spraying them with fire extinguishers, but were quickly stopped. Doors, furniture and the ground floor windows were destroyed in the melee.
Among those inside the building was Ozgur Ozel, elected as party chairperson in November 2023 but dismissed from that post by an appellate court ruling last week. Ozel, in his first and only election as party leader, had delivered a decisive blow to Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party.
A video from inside his office at the start of the raid Sunday shows him being served the court order removing him, which he promptly ripped up.
Leaving party headquarters to cheers from supporters outside, Ozel told journalists: “We are leaving [the building] now only to reclaim it in such a way that no one will be able to meddle again. When we return, neither this administration nor the administration’s collaborators will dare do this once more.”
Ozel and his supporters then marched to parliament about five miles away, joined by hundreds of passersby despite heavy rain and hail. Before arriving at the Grand National Assembly building, he stopped at National Sovereignty Park, where he asked the crowd if they were willing to rebuild the party for a third time.
The CHP was established in 1923 by Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, but was shut down in a 1980 military coup before reemerging in 1992.
Outside the parliament, Ozel rallied a crowd of hundreds, telling them that the CHP was “de facto shuttered” but would be reestablished.
Even if ousted as the chairperson of the CHP, Ozel remains an elected lawmaker from the western province of Manisa and the party’s spokesman.
The appeals court ruling Thursday nullified Ozel’s election as CHP chairperson, suspending him and members of the party’s executive board. The ruling said Ozel should be replaced by Kemal Kilicdaroglu, his predecessor, who led the party for 13 years but never won any national elections.
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The opposition says the decision was politically motivated to weaken the party as it struggles under waves of legal cases targeting its members and elected officials.
The next presidential election isn’t due until 2028, but Erdogan can call for an early vote. His main challenger, Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, a CHP member, has been imprisoned since March last year and is on trial on corruption charges.
Many observers have said the legal cases against the CHP — mostly centered on corruption allegations — are aimed at neutralizing the party ahead of the next election. The government insists that Turkey’s courts are impartial and act independently of political pressure.
The vast majority of the party has rallied behind Ozel. He and most of the party had been inside the CHP headquarters in Ankara since Thursday’s ruling, with the new administration unable to enter. The rival teams were supposed to meet Sunday afternoon to figure a way out of the impasse.
Early on Sunday, a crowd gathered outside the office, watched by a growing police presence. Kilicdaroglu’s lawyer, Celal Celik, sent a request to Ankara police to assist in vacating the building, a move approved by the provincial governor.
The police raid comes at the start of a nine-day holiday for the Muslim festival of Eid al Adha, when many people are on vacation and out of the big cities.
Erdogan has ruled Turkey, first as prime minister and then as president, since 2003. His electoral record suffered a setback in 2019, when the CHP won control of several major cities in local elections. In Istanbul, Imamoglu emerged as a popular and charismatic figure who many believed could defeat Erdogan.
Kiper writes for the Associated Press.
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